How Many Deposits Should A Plane Maker Accept?

Icon announced this week that they'd be at Sun ’n Fun for the first time this year, showing off their pretty and popular little LSA A5 amphibian and taking deposits for it. Florida is surely a great venue for them, as there are lakes galore, and the gators don't seem to take much interest in eating seaplanes. I know, I've splashed down in a lot of Sunshine State lakes. That all makes perfect sense to us, but we've got questions about those deposits.

The foremost is, how many deposits are too many, and is the amount they're asking for, a mere $2,000, too little? It depends, I guess, but it does raise questions. Icon, which has famously put on what others in the aviation press have described as "lavish" parties at AirVenture the past few years, has delivered to our knowledge, just one airplane, and that delivery was on day one of AirVenture last year, to the EAA's Young Eagles program. Icon then proceeded to bring that airplane back to its place in California, according to multiple sources. (Icon did not immediately return our emailed request for verification.)

With the company, according to its website, already holding more than 1900 orders for the A5, with the current nearest delivery position in the third quarter of 2019, which sounds incredibly ambitious to us. Even so, that's more than three years from now. We ask, when is it time to say, "That's enough of a backlog."?

Icon has taken great pride in being nominated for the prestigious Collier Trophy, and as GA types ourselves, we were glad the committee thought of them. But the real test of Icon will be in bringing this much-hyped little airplane to market successfully, which will mean building lots and lots of them in very short order.

That's the news we're anxious to hear more about.

Icon A5 base price: $189,000

Isabel GoyerWriter

A commercial pilot, editor-in-Chief Isabel Goyer has been flying for more than 40 years, with hundreds of different aircraft in her logbook and thousands of hours. An award-winning aviation writer, photographer and editor, Ms. Goyer led teams at Sport Pilot, Air Progress and Flying before coming to Plane & Pilot in 2015.